He was my
grandfather's uncle. A son of Nathaniel G. Taylor, minister and Indian
Commissioner under Andrew Johnson, and Emmaline Haynes Taylor, who was
a sister of the confederate senator Landon Carter Haynes,
"Our Bob" served three terms as governor of Tennessee, having won his
first term by defeating his brother Alf in the famous Tennessee War of
the Roses campaign of 1886. He died while in office as US senator. Bob
and Alf were as well known for their fiddle playing as for their
political achievements, one suspects (and this descendant, another
fiddling Robert Love Taylor, admires them for it). Both men were also
popular on the lecture circuit when not in political office. Their
oldest brother was James Patton Taylor, my
great grandfather, who for a while tinkered with a design for a machine
gun, was beat out of a patent on it by a fellow named Gatling, and
spent most of his life at his farm on the banks of the Nolichucky River
in Tennessee. After Bob's death, James, along with brothers Alf and
Hugh, wrote a biography of their distinguished brother, The Life and Career of Senator Robert Love Taylor (Our Bob). Here's how he looked as a young man.